In a prehistoric veld, a tribe of hominins is driven away from a water hole by a rival tribe, and the next day finds an alien monolith. The tribe learns how to use the bones of dead animals as weapons and, after a successful first hunt, uses them to drive away the rival tribe. Millions of years later, Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics, travels to Clavius Base, an American lunar outpost. During a stopover at Space Station Five, he meets Russian scientists who are concerned that Clavius seems to be unresponsive. He refuses to discuss rumours of an epidemic at the base. At Clavius, Floyd addresses a meeting of personnel, stressing the need for secrecy regarding their newest discovery. His mission is to investigate a recently found artefact, a monolith buried four million years earlier near the lunar crater Tycho. As Floyd and others examine and photograph the object, it emits a high-powered radio signal. Eighteen months later, the American spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter, with mission pilots and scientists Dr Dave Bowman and Dr Frank Poole on board, along with three other scientists in suspended animation. Most of Discovery ' s operations are controlled by HAL, a HAL 9000 computer with a human-like personality. When HAL reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device, Bowman retrieves it in an extravehicular activity (EVA) pod, but finds nothing wrong. HAL suggests reinstalling the device and letting it fail so the problem can be verified. Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their backup 9000 computer indicate that HAL has made an error, but HAL blames it on human error. Concerned about HAL's behaviour, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod so they can talk in private without HAL overhearing. They agree to disconnect HAL if he is proven wrong. HAL follows their conversation by lip reading. While Poole is floating away from his pod to replace the antenna unit, HAL takes control of the pod and attacks him, sending Poole tumbling away from the ship with a severed air line. Bowman takes another pod to rescue Poole. While he is outside, HAL turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation, killing them. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, HAL refuses to let him back in, stating that their plan to deactivate him jeopardises the mission. Bowman releases Poole's body and opens the ship's emergency airlock with his remote manipulators. Lacking a helmet for his spacesuit, he positions his pod carefully so that when he jettisons the pod's door, he is propelled by the escaping air across the vacuum into Discovery ' s airlock. He enters HAL's processor core and begins disconnecting HAL's memory, ignoring HAL's pleas to stop. When he is finished, a prerecorded video by Heywood Floyd plays, revealing that the mission's actual objective is to investigate the radio signal sent from the monolith to Jupiter. At Jupiter, Bowman finds a third, much larger monolith orbiting the planet. He leaves Discovery in an EVA pod to investigate. He is pulled into a vortex of coloured light and observes bizarre astronomical phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colours as he passes by. Finally, he finds himself in a large neoclassical bedroom where he sees, then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a foetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light, which afterwards floats in space above the Earth.

T. E. Lawrence dies in a motorcycle accident in 1935. At a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, it becomes clear that several influential Britons disliked him. During the First World War, Lawrence is a misfit lieutenant in the British Army, notable for his effrontery and education. Mr. Dryden of the Arab Bureau sends him to meet with Colonel Harry Brighton, who advises Prince Feisal in his revolt against the Turks. Lawrence is outraged when his guide is killed by Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish for drinking from the latter's well. Lawrence accuses Ali of being a barbarian and is dismayed to learn that the latter is Feisal's advisor. Relations between the British and the Arabs are tense. While the British will supply guns to the Arabs, they will not provide artillery, which would make Feisal an independent force. Feisal is impressed by Lawrence's familiarity with the Quran and his honesty about British interests in Arabia. Lawrence violates Brighton's orders by convincing Feisal to launch a surprise attack on the port of Aqaba to improve his supply lines. Ali protests, as Aqaba is protected from land attacks by the Nefud Desert and the local Turkish enforcer, Howeitat tribal leader Auda Abu Tayi. Feisal gives Lawrence just fifty men. Lawrence hires teenage orphans Daud and Farraj as his attendants. During the march to Aqaba, Lawrence wins over Feisal's men by returning to the desert to rescue Gasim. The grateful Arabs give Lawrence traditional clothing. Lawrence convinces Auda to switch sides by promising him a Turkish gold hoard at Aqaba. En route, Lawrence is shaken when he must execute Gasim to prevent a conflict between Feisal's men and Auda's. Lawrence and Auda capture Aqaba, but there is no gold. To placate Auda, Lawrence agrees to ask his superiors in Cairo for more money. Daud is drowned by quicksand along the way. In Cairo, Lawrence perplexes the British officers with his Arab clothes and his insistence that Farraj be treated with the same respect as a British officer. General Edmund Allenby promotes Lawrence to major and backs the Arabs with arms and money. Lawrence asks Allenby whether the Arabs are correct that the British seek to dominate Arabia and demands artillery for Feisal's army. Allenby lies to him on both counts. Lawrence launches a guerrilla war against the Turks. The American media romanticise Lawrence's exploits and make him famous, as American journalist Jackson Bentley is looking to highlight the "more adventurous aspects" of war to help draw the United States into the fight. Ali urges Lawrence to slow down, but the latter ignores him. Farraj is injured during a raid, and Lawrence kills him to save him from the Turks, who torture their captives. The Turks capture Lawrence while he scouts Deraa. The Turkish Bey orders him stripped, ogled, prodded and beaten—and, it is implied, raped. Ali rescues him, but the experience leaves Lawrence shaken and humbled. Dryden informs Lawrence about the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which will partition the Middle East between Britain and France. Allenby urges Lawrence to return to Arabia to support the "big push" on Damascus. Lawrence feels betrayed but complies. He recruits an army with little interest in Arab liberation. Lawrence hopes that if the Arabs can take Damascus before the British, they will be able to demand an independent Arab state. Lawrence's army sights a column of retreating Turkish soldiers who have just massacred the residents of Tafas. One of Lawrence's men is from Tafas and demands no prisoners. Ali insists on proceeding to Damascus, but the man charges alone and is killed. Lawrence takes up his battle cry, and the Arabs massacre the Turks. The Arabs beat the British to Damascus. Lawrence advises them to run the city without British support, but the tribesmen bicker constantly, the public utilities fail, and the understaffed hospitals barely function. Feisal discards Lawrence's dream of Arab independence in exchange for British support. Lawrence returns to the British Army. The British promote Lawrence to colonel and order him back to Britain. As he leaves Damascus, he looks longingly at the departing Arabs before his car is passed by a motorcyclist.

One year after Han Solo 's capture and imprisonment in carbonite, C-3PO and R2-D2 enter the palace of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine. They were sent as a goodwill gift by Luke Skywalker, who hopes to negotiate with Jabba for Han's release. Disguised as a bounty hunter, Princess Leia infiltrates the palace under the pretense of having captured Chewbacca. She releases Han from the carbonite but is caught by Jabba and enslaved. Luke arrives to bargain for the release of his friends, but Jabba drops him through a trapdoor to be eaten by a rancor. After Luke kills the beast, Jabba decrees that he, Han, and Chewbacca will be fed to a Sarlacc, a deadly ground-dwelling creature. However, Luke retrieves his new green lightsaber from R2-D2, and the group of friends battle Jabba's thugs aboard his sail barge. During the chaos, Boba Fett falls into the Sarlacc's pit, and Leia strangles Jabba to death with her chains. The group escapes as Jabba's sail barge is destroyed. As the others rendezvous with the Rebel Alliance, Luke returns to Dagobah to complete his Jedi training with Yoda, who is dying when he arrives. Before Yoda dies, he confirms that Darth Vader is Luke's father, the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, and that there is another Skywalker. Obi-Wan Kenobi 's Force spirit tells Luke that Leia is his twin sister, and that he must face Vader again to finish his training and defeat the Empire. The Alliance learns that the Empire has been constructing a second Death Star under the supervision of the Emperor. The station is protected by an energy shield on the forest moon of Endor. Han leads a strike team, including Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca, to destroy its generator. Once on the moon, the team gains the trust of a tribe of Ewoks. Luke tells Leia she is his sister, and that Vader is their father. Luke surrenders to Imperial troops and is brought before Vader, but fails to convince him to reject the dark side of the Force. Luke is brought to the Emperor, who intends to turn him to the dark side. He reveals that Luke's friends on Endor and the rebel fleet are heading into a trap. On the forest moon, Han's team is captured by Imperial forces, but the Ewoks counterattack, allowing the Rebels to infiltrate the shield generator. Meanwhile, Lando Calrissian and Admiral Ackbar lead the rebel assault on the Death Star, but find its shield still active and the Imperial fleet waiting for them. The Emperor reveals to Luke that the Death Star is fully operational and orders the firing of its massive laser, which destroys a rebel starship. He tempts Luke to give in to his anger and embrace the dark side of the Force. Luke attacks him, but Vader intervenes, and the two engage in a lightsaber duel. During the battle, Vader realizes Luke has a sister, and he threatens to turn her to the dark side. Luke becomes enraged and severs Vader's prosthetic hand. The Emperor orders Luke to kill his father, but Luke refuses. The Emperor then tortures Luke with Force lightning. Unwilling to let his son die, Vader throws the Emperor down a shaft to his demise, but is fatally wounded in the process. Before dying, Vader asks Luke to remove his mask in a moment of reconciliation. After the rebel strike team destroys the shield generator, Lando leads fighter ships into the Death Star's core. Lando and the X-wing pilot Wedge Antilles destroy the station's main reactor and escape before it explodes. Later, Luke cremates Vader's body on Endor before reuniting with his friends. As the Rebels celebrate their victory, Luke sees the Force spirits of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker standing nearby.

The story begins in 1973 Moscow, where engineer Aleksandr "Shurik" Timofeyev (Aleksandr Demyanenko) is working on a time machine in his apartment. By accident, he sends Ivan Vasilievich Bunsha (Yury Yakovlev), superintendent of his apartment building, and George Miloslavsky (Leonid Kuravlyov), a burglar, back into the 16th century — the time of tsar Ivan IV "The Terrible". The pair is forced to disguise themselves, with Bunsha dressing up as tsar Ivan IV and Miloslavsky as a knyaz (prince) of the same name. At the same time, the real Ivan IV (also played by Yury Yakovlev) is sent by the same machine into Shurik's apartment, and he has to deal with modern-day life while Shurik tries to fix the machine so that everyone can be brought back to their proper timelines. Superintendent Bunsha and Tsar Ivan IV are lookalikes but have completely different personalities, which results in the comedy of mistaken identity. As the Militsiya (police), tipped off by a neighbor who was burgled by Miloslavsky, close in on Shurik, who is frantically trying to repair the machine, the cover of Bunsha and Miloslavsky is blown and they have to fight off the Streltsy (tsar's guards), who have figured out that Bunsha is an impostor. The film ends with Bunsha, Miloslavsky, and Ivan IV all transported back to their proper timelines, although the entire episode is revealed to be a dream by Shurik... or was it?

A kind, yet naïve, ethnography student named Shurik (Alexander Demyanenko), known from earlier films as a student at a polytechnic institute, goes to the Caucasus to learn ancient customs and traditions practised by the locals, including "myths, legends, and toasts". At the start of the film, Shurik is making his way along a mountain road in the Caucasus on a donkey. He comes upon a truck driver named Edik whose truck refuses to start. The donkey gets stubborn and neither man is able to get his respective mode of transportation going. Suddenly, a young woman named Nina (Natalya Varley) comes walking down the road. The donkey immediately begins to move after her and the truck starts working again. Nina is "a higher education student, an athlete, a member of the Komsomol, and last but not least — a beauty". Her uncle, Comrade Dzhabrail (Frunzik Mkrtchyan), works as a chauffeur for Comrade Saakhov (Vladimir Etush), who is the director of the regional agricultural cooperative and the wealthiest and most powerful man in town. Saakhov likes Nina and invites her to take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new civil registry. Shurik shows up to the ribbon-cutting completely drunk because the locals refused to tell him local toasts unless he drank to each of them. He ends up becoming disorderly and the militsiya carts him off. Meanwhile, Saakhov decides to marry Nina and strikes a deal with Dzhabrail to purchase the bride in return for 20 head of sheep and an imported Finnish Rosenlew refrigerator. Rather than asking for Nina's agreement (which her uncle realizes would be impossible to get), they decide to kidnap her instead. The trio of the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro, hired to do the job, find it difficult to get Nina alone because she has started to spend a lot of time with Shurik. At this point, Saakhov has the idea to unwittingly get Shurik in on it by telling him that the kidnapping of the bride is a local custom. Dzhabrail meets with Shurik in a restaurant and tells him this story, lying to him that Nina has already agreed to marry Saakhov and that she wants to be kidnapped in order to comply with tradition. Shurik is devastated, because he is in love with Nina, but thinking that this is what she wants, he agrees to help. Nina has gone camping and spends a night in a sleeping bag. Shurik bids her an emotional good-bye; misunderstanding him, she shrugs and also says good-bye. Shurik then zips her up in her sleeping bag and signals to the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro, who run over to grab the helpless Nina and transport her to Saakhov's dacha. Soon after, Shurik learns that the kidnapping was real and that the story about it being a custom was a lie. Shurik immediately runs to the militsiya, but Saakhov (who Shurik does not realize is involved) is waiting for him outside. Saakhov explains to Shurik that if he says anything, the militsiya will arrest him as a co-conspirator and suggests they go straight to the local prosecutor instead. Shurik agrees, but Saakhov tricks him by leading him to a house where there is a party going on and getting him to drink, then calling doctors from the local psychiatric clinic and having Shurik committed. Meanwhile, at Saakhov's dacha, the trio of kidnappers lock Nina in a room and try to cheer her up by bringing food and singing songs. Nina pretends to be interested, but then when the kidnappers are distracted, she tries to run away. She is stopped by her uncle and forced to return to her room, where she is locked up. Saakhov arrives with a bottle of wine and goes in to speak with Nina, but runs out moments later covered from head to toe in the wine. Deciding to give Nina some time to "think about it", Dzhabrail and Saakhov drive away from the dacha, leaving the trio of kidnappers in charge of Nina. At the hospital, Shurik finally realizes that Saakhov is the one behind the kidnapping. Shurik escapes from the psychiatric ward and happens to run into Edik, the truck driver he had met at the beginning of the film. Together, they drive toward Saakhov's dacha. When they arrive, they have changed into doctors' uniforms and convince the Coward, the Fool, and the Pro that they are doing emergency vaccinations against a dangerous hoof-and-mouth disease that is affecting the area. Under this guise, they inject the trio with sedatives. While Edik is performing the injections, Shurik goes up to Nina's room. Still thinking that he was in on the kidnapping, she hits him over the head with a fruit plate, runs out of the room, jumps out of a first-floor window, and steals one of the trucks. A car chase ensues in which the kidnappers chase Nina while Shurik and Edik chase the kidnappers. The kidnappers catch up with Nina, commandeer her vehicle, and tie her up, but at that moment the sedative begins to take effect and they all fall asleep. Shurik catches up with the truck right before it veers off the road and stops it. He begins to untie Nina, but she attacks him, still thinking that he is in league with the kidnappers. To reveal his feelings for her, Shurik kisses Nina before he finishes untying her. The action moves to Saakhov's apartment at night. He is alone. Suddenly, Nina, Shurik, and Edik appear, holding rifles, dressed in masks, and calling themselves the enforcers of the "law of the mountains". Saakhov does not recognize them and, scared to death, jumps out of the window. Edik shoots him with his shotgun, which turns out to be loaded with nothing more than salt. He hits him in the rump and, when Saakhov is brought up on charges in court the next day, he is unable to sit. The film ends with Shurik walking Nina to a bus and then following after her on his donkey.

Industrialist John Hammond has created Jurassic Park, a theme park featuring de-extinct dinosaurs, on the tropical island Isla Nublar, off the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a dinosaur handler, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, threaten to pull funding unless experts certify the island's safety. Gennaro invites the chaotician Ian Malcolm, while Hammond invites the paleontologist Alan Grant and the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see living Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. At the park's visitor center, the group learns that the cloning was accomplished by extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs and other animals was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' genome. To prevent the dinosaurs from breeding, they are all made female by chromosome manipulation. The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, they debate the ethics of cloning and of the park in general. Malcolm warns of the implications of genetic engineering while Grant and Sattler express uncertainty over the ability of humans and dinosaurs to coexist. Hammond's grandchildren, Lex and Tim, join the others for a park tour in two self-driving electric vehicles, while Hammond observes them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear, and the group encounters a sick Triceratops. The tour is cut short as a tropical storm approaches. The park employees leave for the mainland on a boat while the visitors return to their vehicles; Sattler stays behind to study the Triceratops. Jurassic Park's disgruntled computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed to steal frozen dinosaur embryos by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival. To access the embryo storage room, Nedry deactivates the park's security system, cutting power to the tour vehicles. Most of the park's electric fences have been deactivated, which allows a Tyrannosaurus rex to escape and attack the touring group. The Tyrannosaurus devours Gennaro and injures Malcolm while Grant, Lex, and Tim escape. On his way to deliver the embryos to the island's docks, Nedry gets lost in the rain, crashes his vehicle, and is killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus. Sattler helps the game warden Robert Muldoon search for survivors; they find Malcolm just before the Tyrannosaurus returns and chases them away. Grant, Lex and Tim take shelter in a tree and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd, then discover the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of their amphibian DNA—animals like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment. Unable to decipher Nedry's code to reactivate the security system, Hammond and chief engineer Ray Arnold decide to reboot the park's systems. They shut down the power grid and retreat to an emergency bunker while Arnold heads to a maintenance shed to complete the rebooting process. When Arnold fails to return, Sattler and Muldoon go to the shed, and discover that the shutdown has released the Velociraptors. Sattler turns the power back on before being attacked by a raptor and discovering Arnold's severed arm. While she escapes, Muldoon is killed by another Velociraptor. Grant, Lex and Tim reach the visitor center. Grant leaves to look for Sattler, leaving Lex and Tim inside. The raptors appear and pursue the children through a kitchen, but they escape and join Grant and Sattler. The group reaches the control room, and Lex restores the park's systems, allowing them to contact Hammond, who radios for a helicopter to take them off the island. As the group tries to leave they are cornered by the two raptors, but the Tyrannosaurus appears and fights the velociraptors. It kills the first by biting it, and throws the second into a skeleton on exhibit, killing it as well. The group flees and boards the helicopter, and Grant and Hammond agree not to endorse the park.

The boss of a black market ring (known only as "The Chief") wants to smuggle a batch of jewelry from a foreign state into the Soviet Union by hiding it inside the orthopedic cast of a courier. The Chief sends a minor henchman named Gennadiy 'Gesha' Kozodoyev (played by Mironov) to serve as the courier. Kozodoyev travels to Turkey via a tourist cruise ship. The local co-conspirators do not know what the courier looks like; they only know that he is supposed to say a code word to identify himself. The code word is a simple swear such as "Oh darn", after a slip and "fall". After Kozodoyev's fellow passenger from the cruise ship, the "ordinary Soviet citizen" Semyon Gorbunkov (played by Nikulin), accidentally falls and says the code phrase, they mistake him for the courier. They place a cast around his arm and put the contraband jewels inside the cast. Upon the cruise ship's return to the Soviet Union, Gorbunkov lets the police know what happened, and the police captain, who is working undercover as a taxi driver, uses Gorbunkov as bait to catch the criminals. Gesha and Lyolik (another of Chief's henchmen, played by Papanov) attempt to lure Gorbunkov into situations where they can quietly, without a wetwork, remove the cast and reclaim the contraband jewels. On one such occasion, Gesha invites Gorbunkov to a fancy restaurant with the intention of getting Gorbunkov drunk enough for Lyolik to subdue him. However, both Gesha and Gorbunkov become drunk and Gorbunkov is taken home by the police after he and Gesha cause a scene. Gorbunkov's wife, begins to suspect either that he has been recruited by foreign intelligence after finding a large amount of money and a gun loaded with blanks in Gorbunkov's possession (previously given to him by the police), or that he is having an affair. Gorbunkov explains that he is working with the Soviet police on a secret mission, but cannot divulge any details. The Chief sends Anna Sergeyevna, a female operative, to help retrieve the cast. Anna Sergeyevna invites Gorbunkov to her hotel room under the pretense of wanting to sell Gorbunkov a gown and spikes his drink with a sleeping pill. As Gorbunkov is about to pass out, his building's nosy superintendent who had followed Gorbunkov brings his wife into the hotel room before either Lyolik or the police can get to him. Gorbunkov awakens the next morning to find that his wife has assumed that his story was all a cover up for an affair, and has left with the children. The police in the meantime have deduced that Gesha is involved with the smuggling scheme surrounding the cast, and ask Gorbunkov to mention to Gesha that he is planning to travel to another city and will have his cast removed there. Gesha reports this to the Chief, who sends Lyolik disguised as a taxi driver to pick up Gorbunkov. Gorbunkov assumes that Lyolik is also an undercover policeman, and gives away the fact that he has been in contact with the police the entire time. Lyolik plays along and tells Gorbunkov that he has been authorized to remove the cast a day early at a safehouse along the way to Dubrovka. As Lyolik is about to remove the cast, Gorbunkov deduces that Lyolik is actually a criminal and attempts to escape. Lyolik and Gesha chase Gorbunkov and with the help of the Chief himself, they capture Gorbunkov. Upon removing Gorbunkov's cast, they realize that the police had removed the diamonds in the cast a long time ago. The criminals kidnap Gorbunkov and attempt to flee as the police track them down in a helicopter and capture them. Gorbunkov is reunited with his family, with the police having explained the situation to his wife. Gorbunkov goes on vacation with his family, albeit now with a broken leg as a result of the kidnapping.

During World War II, Allied POWs who have repeatedly escaped from camps in Germany are moved to a new camp under the command of Luftwaffe Colonel von Luger. He warns the senior prisoner, Group Captain Ramsey, that escapees will be shot. Several POWs unsuccessfully attempt to escape on the first day. Hilts, a notoriously prolific American escapee, finds a blind spot at the fence and gives himself up to the guards without revealing the discovery to them. He is placed in a cell next to Ives in "the cooler", and the two become friends. Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett re-establishes the escape-planning committee from their former camp, and proposes breaking out 250 men to divert Germans away from the front. The POWs work on three tunnels: "Tom", "Dick", and "Harry". Preparations are widespread and elaborate. Welinski and Dickes lead the digging, Sedgwick makes equipment such as picks and air bellows, Ashley-Pitt conceals the excavated dirt in plain sight, while Cavendish surveys the tunnels’ routes and leads a choir to mask the sounds of any escape-related activities. MacDonald gathers intelligence, Griffith sews civilian disguises, Blythe forges documents, and Hendley secures supplies on the black market. Aware that Hilts is planning his own escape, Bartlett asks him to allow himself to be recaptured so he can draw maps of the surrounding area but Hilts refuses. When "Tom" nears completion, Bartlett orders "Dick" and "Harry" sealed off. Meanwhile, Hilts, Hendley, and Goff brew potato moonshine and celebrate the Fourth of July with the camp. However, the guards find "Tom" during the celebration. Ives snaps, climbs the fence, and is shot dead. Hilts, shaken, agrees to Bartlett's proposal, and Bartlett orders "Harry" reopened. Welinski's claustrophobia is triggered after a tunnel collapse, but Dickes offers to guide him. Bartlett objects to Blythe's participation on discovering his progressive myopia but Hendley offers to guide him. On the night of the escape, "Harry" is dug to the surface but the exit has come up 20 feet (6.1 m) short of the woods, increasing the danger of detection. Hilts then uses 30 feet of rope to signal the prisoners to exit the tunnel. The escape is also briefly aided by a fortuitous air raid blackout, which allows more to escape. Dozens flee before Cavendish unintentionally draws suspicion by slipping, and an impatient Griffith rushes, alerting the guards. In all 76 escapees make it through the tunnel. Welinski and Dickes steal a boat and board a ship for Sweden, while Sedgwick heads to France, where the Resistance smuggles him to Spain. The rest are captured: Cavendish is betrayed by a truck driver. Hendley and Blythe crash a stolen plane short of Switzerland when the engine fails; Blythe is shot and Hendley is recaptured. Hilts rides a stolen motorcycle for the Swiss border with soldiers in pursuit who capture him when he fails to jump the cycle over the frontier fence. Ashley-Pitt sacrifices himself when he kills a Gestapo officer before he can expose Bartlett: however, Bartlett and MacDonald are still arrested after another Gestapo officer tricks MacDonald into speaking English while boarding a bus. With Ashley-Pitt and Blythe killed, 48 of the 50 escapees, including Bartlett, MacDonald, and Cavendish, are executed. Ramsey informs Hendley and other returning survivors of the murders, and says that Bartlett's plan to create havoc was a success. Hendley questions whether it was worth the price. Von Luger, ashamed of the murders, is relieved of command. Hilts is returned to the cooler and resumes his solo game of catch.

In 1912, Boy Scout Indiana Jones lives with his father Henry Jones Sr. in Moab, Utah. One day, while exploring caves on an excursion with his scout troop, Indy takes a crucifix owned by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from a group of graverobbers led by a man named Garth, and after a brief chase on horseback and aboard a circus train, Indy flees to his home, where Garth and his men find him and confiscate the crucifix with the help of the local sheriff. Garth, however, admits his respect for the scrappy young man, and gives him his fedora before leaving. In 1938, Indy successfully takes back the crucifix from the employer of the graverobbers off the Portuguese coast. After returning to his university classroom in the United States, Indy learns his father has disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail and Henry's home was ransacked. Walter Donovan, his father's financial backer, tasks Indy with finding both Henry and the Grail. Indy receives a package containing Henry's diary, which includes his research on the Grail, and travels to Venice alongside Marcus Brody to meet Henry's associate Dr. Elsa Schneider. Beneath the library where Henry was last seen, Indy and Elsa discover a catacomb containing an inscribed shield which reveals that the path to the Grail begins in Alexandretta. The two are subsequently attacked by a mysterious group who reveal themselves to be the secret Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, dedicated to protecting the Grail. After saving the group's leader Kazim, Indy learns that Henry is being held at Brunwald Castle in Austria. Indy entrusts Marcus with a map from the diary detailing a route to the Grail and sends him to Alexandretta to rendezvous with their old friend Sallah. Discovering their rooms have been ransacked, Indy reveals the diary's existence to Elsa before they sleep together. In Austria, Indy and Elsa infiltrate the castle, discovering it to be under Nazi control commanded by Standartenführer Ernst Vogel. Indy finds Henry and tries to escape, but surrenders after Vogel holds Elsa at gunpoint. She reveals herself and Donovan to be Nazi collaborators and takes the diary. After arriving in Alexandretta, Marcus is captured by the Nazis as well. Elsa returns to Germany, while Indy and Henry escape the castle before traveling to Berlin, where Indy retrieves the diary during a book burning rally hosted by Adolf Hitler. After recovering it from Elsa, Indy and Henry flee on a Zeppelin. Soon the zeppelin reroutes back to Germany, forcing Indy and his father to commandeer a spare plane before evading two Luftwaffe planes pursuing them. Once Indy and Henry arrive in Hatay, Sallah informs them that the Nazis have also traveled there using the map. While they are following the trail, the Nazis are ambushed by Kazim and the Brotherhood, but the Nazis manage to kill them all. Henry takes advantage of the distraction to try to rescue Marcus but is captured; Indy attacks the Nazi convoy in response and is eventually able to destroy it with help from Henry and Marcus while sending Vogel and his tank over the cliff. Indy, Henry, Marcus, and Sallah proceed to a temple containing the Grail, where they observe the Nazis attempting to overcome the temple's traps before being captured. Donovan forces Indy to find safe passage for them by mortally wounding Henry; a drink from the Grail can heal him. With the help of the diary, Indy overcomes the traps and finds a room with many cups and an ancient knight, who explains that only one cup is the true Grail. Donovan and Elsa enter the room, and Elsa deliberately gives him the wrong cup, killing Donovan after he drinks from it. Indy identifies the true Grail and saves Henry's life with a warning from the knight that the Grail can never cross the great seal. Elsa ignores the warning, setting off a cataclysm in the temple; she falls to her death trying to take the Grail, and Indy nearly suffers the same fate before Henry convinces him to let it go. The Grail falls into an abyss as Indy and his companions escape and ride off into the sunset.

In 2032, American middle school teacher and former molecular biologist Ryland Grace wakes up from an induced coma on the interstellar spacecraft Hail Mary, suffering from amnesia. Grace learns that he is the sole survivor of a three-person crew that was traveling towards the Tau Ceti system, 11.9 light-years from Earth. In a series of flashbacks, Grace recalls that scientists discovered a "Petrova line" of infrared light stretching from the Sun to Venus; a substance in the line, dubbed "astrophage", was proliferating on the Sun's surface, dimming the Sun at a rate that would cause catastrophic global cooling within thirty years. The head of the Petrova Taskforce, Eva Stratt, recruited Grace to study the astrophage due to his background in speculative astrobiology. Grace discovered that astrophage was composed of unicellular organisms that absorb electromagnetic radiation from the Sun and expel it for propulsion. He also learned how to breed the astrophage on Earth. Grace joined Stratt's Project Hail Mary, an international "long-shot" mission to send a crewed spacecraft to Tau Ceti, the only star in Earth's solar neighborhood not occluded by astrophage. Grace helped to breed astrophage fuel for the ship, and planned the crew's research tasks. The flight to Tau Ceti would be a suicide mission, as the ship could only carry enough fuel for a one-way trip; any findings would have to return to Earth in smaller space probes. In the present, Grace encounters an alien spacecraft (" Blip-A ") that docks with the Hail Mary. It is made of a solid form of xenon, which Grace dubs xenonite. The ship's occupant is a rock-like, five-legged alien from Erid, a planet in the 40 Eridani A system. Grace names the alien "Rocky", deduces that Eridians "see" via echolocation, and creates a machine translation system to interpret Rocky's musical language. Rocky is a mechanical engineer, and the sole survivor of the Eridians' mission to save their own star from astrophage infection. Grace and Rocky agree to work together, and quickly become close friends. As neither can survive in the other's atmosphere, Rocky works aboard the Hail Mary inside a pressurized ball of xenonite. Grace and Rocky study the Petrova line of the planet Tau Ceti e, which Grace names "Adrian", and discover that the line hosts an entire microbial biosphere. Rocky theorizes that microbial organisms in Adrian's atmosphere are consuming the astrophage, keeping the population in check. Learning that Grace cannot return home, Rocky agrees to share some of his own ship's astrophage fuel with the Hail Mary. Grace remembers that an astrophage explosion killed the original crew's science officers; with no time to train replacements, Stratt asked Grace to join the suicide mission, but he fearfully refused. During a risky maneuver to gather the astrophage predator from Adrian's atmosphere, a fuel leak causes the Hail Mary to spin uncontrollably, rendering Grace unconscious. Rocky breaks out of his ball to save Grace, but is severely injured. While Rocky recovers, Grace studies the captured astrophage predator, dubbing it "taumoeba" and selectively breeding it to survive the nitrogen in Venus's atmosphere. Rocky revives, and the two celebrate their success; Grace then recalls that Stratt had him drugged and put aboard the ship, believing he was the only one capable of completing the mission. Rocky and Grace say their goodbyes and begin their journeys back home. Shortly thereafter, Grace discovers that the taumoeba has developed a way to escape its xenonite breeding tanks, and is starting to consume Hail Mary ' s astrophage fuel. Grace transfers the taumoeba to plastic containers, but realizes that, as Rocky's ship is made entirely of xenonite, he will have no way to contain the taumoeba on his ship; it will eat his fuel, stranding him and dooming Erid. Grace decides to rescue Rocky and the Eridians rather than return home, and sends his video logs and taumoeba samples to Earth via the probes. Stratt and her team use the taumoeba to cure the Sun's astrophage infection. Meanwhile, on Erid, Grace lives in an Earth-like biodome the Eridians have constructed for him. Rocky informs him that Eridian scientists are able to prepare the Hail Mary for a return to Earth. Grace ponders the news before beginning another day of teaching science to Eridian children.